• Haruhiko Kuroda spoke at his confirmation hearing for new head of the BOJ in the Japanese parliament today (the hearings for the deputies is tomorrow)
  • Kuroda spoke forthrightly about his plans for further easing, most notably:
  • Will try to end deflation as soon as possible
  • BOJ has not bought enough assets to end deflation
  • Most natural way to ease policy further is to increase JBG purchases, buying longer-dated JGBs
  • Will consider starting open-ended asset buying earlier than the current pledge of next year
  • Japan data: February Monetary Base +15.0% y/y (vs. +10.9% y/y prior)
  • Australia: February TD/MI inflation gauge 0.0% m/m (vs. 0.3% prior)
  • Australia: February TD/MI inflation gauge 2.4% y/y (vs. 2.5% y/y prior)
  • Australia February ANZ Job Advertisements +3.0% m/m (vs. +0.6% prior; the prior was revised up from -0.9%)
  • Australia January Building Approvals -2.4% m/m (vs. +2.8% expected)
  • Australia January Building Approvals +9.9% y/y (vs. +8.1% expected)
  • Australia Q4 Company operating profits -1.0% q/q (vs. -1.0% expected)
  • Australia Q4 Inventories +0.2% q/q (vs. +0.6% expected)
  • News Ltd. is selling its 44% stake in Sky TV – the dominant pay TV service in NZ. The stake is worth around $USD715 million.
  • New Zealand February ANZ Commodity Prices +1.0% m/m (vs. +0.3% m/m prior)
  • New Zealand Treasury: sees improving demand picture and Q4 GDP should come in strong
  • UK February Hometrack Housing Survey +0.1% m/m (vs. 0.0% m/m prior)
  • UK February Hometrack Housing Survey -0.1% y/y (vs. -0.3% y/y prior)
  • UK February Lloyds Business Barometer falls to 13 (vs. reading of 15 prior)
  • China MNI February Consumer Sentiment Indicator 94.7 (vs. 94.1 in January)
  • China’s Shanghai Composite had more big falls during the morning
  • Traders please note: Eurozone finance ministers meet in Brussels today (Monday)

Yen was active today with Kuroda’s comments at his confirmation hearing crossing the wires in the Tokyo morning. Although Kuroda was making all the right noises re fighting deflation/more easing/balance sheet expansion and extension, and so on, USD/JPY could not get above 93.70/75. It traded down to 93.28/33, where it found support and then moved sideways into the afternoon.

EUR was very quiet, in a tight range as the action was elsewhere.

NZD opened lower this morning. It traded higher to fill in the gap but found renewed weakness and goes into early Europe near the days lows.

AUD/USD opened around and just below 1.0200 in the morning. It traded more-or-less sideways in a restricted range until the economic data deluge saw it come under selling pressure (see bullets above). The selling pressure was very sustained – the bids at 1.0175/85 were gradually filled in, then the same again ahead of 1.0150. As these buyers were being filled in there was no bounce at all in the AUD – the selling was just too intense. Once the bids completed and it broke broke, it got hit hard to a low 1.0117 where once again bids are resting. There is an RBA meeting tomorrow (Tuesday); no rate cut is expected.

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Special wrap extra: Weekend news

There was news out over the weekend (covered on ForexLive) with it would pay traders to be aware of: